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THE 

RESIDENT'S 
^AR  MESSAGE 


University  of  California 

Southern  Regional 

Library  Facility 


I  O  U 


y 


Og(P^' 


THE 
PRESIDENT'S  WAR  MESSAGE 


THE  PRESIDENT'S 
WAR  MESSAGE 


THE   HISTORIC    ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  TO  THE   CONGRESS  OF  THE 

UNITED   STATES    BY 

WOODROW  WILSON 

APRIL  SECOND 

NINETEEN  SEVENTEEN 


PUBLISHED  FOR  THE 

^an  Jf rancigco  Cfjronidc 

BY 

PAUL   ELDER   AND   COMPANY 

SAN   FRANCISCO 


THE  PRESIDENT'S 


WAR  MESSAGE 

HAVE  called  the  Congress 
into  extraordinary  session 
because  there  are  serious, 
very  serious,  choices  of 
policy  to  be  made,  and  made 
immediately,  which  it  was 
neither  right  nor  constitu- 
tionally permissible  that  I  should  as- 
sume the  responsibility  of  making. 

On  the  third  of  February  last,  I  of- 
ficially laid  before  you  the  extraordi- 
nary announcement  of  the  Imperial 
German  Government  that  on  and  after 
the  first  day  of  February  it  was  its  pur- 
pose to  put  aside  all  restraints  of  law 
or  of  humanity  and  use  its  submarines 
to  sink  every  vessel  that  sought  to  ap- 
proach either  the  ports  of  Great  Britain 

3 


^ 


and  Ireland  or  the  western  coasts  of 
Europe  or  any  of  the  ports  controlled 
by  the  enemies  of  Germany  within  the 
Mediterranean. 

That  had  seemed  to  be  the  object  of 
the  German  submarine  warfare  earlier 
in  the  war;  but  since  April  of  last  year 
the  Imperial  Government  had  some- 
what restrained  the  commanders  of  its 
undersea  craft  in  conformity  with  its 
promise  then  given  to  us  that  passen- 
ger boats  should  not  be  sunk,  and  that 
due  warning  would  be  given  to  all 
other  vessels  which  its  submarines 
might  seek  to  destroy,  when  no  resist- 
ance was  offered  or  escape  attempted, 
and  care  taken  that  their  crews  were 
given  at  least  a  fair  chance  to  save 
their  lives  in  their  open  boats. 

The  precautions  taken  were  meager 
and  haphazard  enough,  as  was  proved 
in  distressing  instance  after  instance 
in  the  progress  of  the  cruel  and  un- 
manly business,  but  a  certain  degree 
of  restraint  was  observed. 


The  new  policy  has  swept  every  re- 
striction aside.  Vessels  of  every  kind, 
whatever  their  flag,  their  character, 
their  cargo,  their  destination,  their  er- 
rand, have  been  ruthlessly  sent  to  the 
bottom  without  warning  and  without 
thought  of  help  or  mercy  for  those  on 
board — the  vessels  of  friendly  neutrals, 
along  with  belligerents. 

Even  hospital  ships  and  ships  carry- 
ing relief  to  the  sorely  bereaved  and 
stricken  people  of  Belgium,  though  the 
latter  were  provided  with  safe  conduct 
through  the  proscribed  areas  by  the 
(icrnian  Government  itself  and  were 
distinguished  by  unmistakable  marks 
of  identity,  have  been  sunk  with  the 
same  reckless  lack  of  compassion  or  of 
principle. 

I  was  for  a  little  while  unable  to  be- 
lieve that  such  things  would  in  fact  be 
done  by  any  government  that  had 
hitherto  subscribed  to  the  humane 
practices  of  civilized  nations. 

International  law  had  its  origin  in 


the  attempt  to  set  up  some  law  which 
would  be  respected  and  observed  upon 
the  seas,  where  no  nation  had  right  of 
dominion  and  where  lay  the  free  high- 
ways of  the  world. 

By  painful  stage  after  stage  has  that 
law  been  built  up,  with  meager  enough 
results,  indeed,  after  all  was  accom- 
plished that  could  be  accomplished, 
but  always  with  a  clear  view,  at  least, 
of  what  the  heart  and  conscience  of 
mankind  demanded. 

This  minimum  of  right  the  German 
Government  has  swept  aside  under  the 
plea  of  retaliation  and  necessity,  and 
because  it  had  no  weapons  w^hich  it 
could  use  at  sea  except  these  which  it 
is  impossible  to  employ  as  it  is  em- 
ploying them  without  throwing  to  the 
winds  all  scruples  of  humanity  or  of 
respect  for  the  understandings  that 
were  supposed  to  underlie  the  inter- 
course of  the  world. 

I  am  not  now  thinking  of  the  loss  of 
property  involved,  immense  and  seri- 


ous  as  that  is,  but  only  of  the  wanton 
and  wholesale  destruction  of  the  lives 
of  non-combatants,  men,  women  and 
children,  engaged  in  pursuits  which 
have  always,  even  in  the  darkest  peri- 
ods of  modern  history,  been  deemed 
innocent  and  legitimate. 

Property  can  be  paid  for;  the  lives 
of  peaceful  and  innocent  people  can- 
not be. 

The  present  German  submarine  war- 
fare against  commerce  is  a  warfare 
against  mankind.  It  is  a  war  against  all 
nations. 

American  ships  have  been  sunk, 
American  lives  taken,  in  ways  which 
it  has  stirred  us  very  deeply  to  learn 
of,  but  the  ships  and  people  of  other 
neutral  and  friendly  nations  have  been 
sunk  and  overwhelmed  in  the  waters 
in  the  same  way.  There  has  been  no 
discrimination. 

The  challenge  is  to  all  mankind. 
Each  nation  must  decide  for  itself  how 
it  will  meet  it. 


The  choice  we  make  for  ourselves 
must  be  made  with  a  moderation  of 
counsel  and  a  temperateness  of  judg- 
ment befitting  our  character  and  our 
motives  as  a  nation.  We  must  put  ex- 
cited feeling  away. 

Our  motive  will  not  be  revenge  or 
the  victorious  assertion  of  the  physical 
might  of  the  Nation,  but  only  the  vin- 
dication of  right,  of  human  right,  of 
which  we  are  only  a  single  champion. 

When  I  addressed  the  Congress  on 
the  twenty-sixth  of  February  last,  I 
thought  that  it  would  suffice  to  assert 
our  neutral  rights  with  arms,  our  right 
to  use  the  seas  against  unlawful  inter- 
ference, our  right  to  keep  our  people 
safe  against  unlawful  violence. 

But  armed  neutrality,  it  now  ap- 
pears, is  impracticable.  Because  sub- 
marines are  in  effect  outlaws  when 
used  as  the  German  submarines  have 
been  used  against  merchant  shipping, 
it  is  impossible  to  defend  ships  against 
their  attacks  as  the  law  of  nations  has 

8 


assumed  that  merchantmen  would  de- 
fend themselves  against  privateers  or 
cruisers,  visible  craft  giving  chase  upon 
the  open  sea. 

It  is  common  prudence  in  such  cir- 
cumstances, grim  necessity  indeed,  to 
endeavor  to  destroy  them  before  they 
have  shown  their  own  intention.  They 
must  be  dealt  with  upon  sight,  if  dealt 
with  at  all. 

The  German  Government  denies  the 
right  of  neutrals  to  use  arms  at  all 
within  the  areas  of  the  sea  which  it  has 
proscribed,  even  in  the  defense  of 
rights  which  no  modern  publicist  has 
ever  before  questioned  their  right  to 
defend.  The  intimation  is  conveyed 
that  the  armed  guards  which  we  have 
placed  on  our  merchant  ships  will  be 
treated  as  beyond  the  pale  of  law  and 
subject  to  be  dealt  with  as  pirates 
would  be.  Armed  neutrality  is  inef- 
fectual enough  at  best;  in  such  circum- 
stances and  in  the  face  of  such  pre- 
tensions it  is  worse  than  inofFectual:  it 


is  likely  only  to  produce  what  it  was 
meant  to  prevent;  it  is  practically  cer- 
tain to  draw  us  into  the  war  without 
either  the  rights  or  the  effectiveness  of 
belligerents. 

There  is  one  choice  we  cannot  make, 
we  are  incapable  of  making:  we  will 
not  choose  the  path  of  submission  and 
suffer  the  most  sacred  rights  of  our 
Nation  and  our  people  to  be  ignored 
or  violated.  The  wrongs  against  which 
we  now  array  ourselves  are  no  com- 
mon wrongs;  they  cut  to  the  very  roots 
of  human  life. 

With  a  profound  sense  of  the  solemn 
and  even  tragical  character  of  the  step 
I  am  taking  and  of  the  gi-ave  responsi- 
bilities which  it  involves,  but  in  un- 
hesitating obedience  to  what  I  deem 
my  constitutional  duty,  I  advise  that 
the  Congress  declare  the  recent  course 
of  the  Imperial  German  Government 
to  be  in  fact  nothing  less  than  war 
against  the  Government  and  people  of 
the  United  States;  that  it  formally  ac- 

10 


cept  the  status  of  belligerent  which 
has  thus  been  thrust  upon  it;  and  that 
it  take  immediate  steps  not  only  to  put 
the  country  in  a  more  thorough  state 
of  defense,  but  also  to  exert  all  its 
power  and  employ  all  its  resources  to 
bring  the  Government  of  the  German 
Empire  to  terms  and  end  the  war. 

What  this  will  involve  is  clear.  It 
will  involve  the  utmost  practicable  co- 
operation in  counsel  and  action  with 
the  governments  now  at  war  with  Ger- 
many, and,  as  incident  to  that,  the  ex- 
tension to  those  governments  of  the 
most  liberal  financial  credits,  in  order 
that  our  resources  may,  so  far  as  pos- 
sible, be  added  to  theirs.  It  will  involve 
the  organization  and  mobilization  of 
all  the  material  resources  of  the  coun- 
try to  supply  the  materials  of  war  and 
serve  the  incidental  needs  of  the  Na- 
tion in  the  most  abundant  and  yet  the 
most  economical  and  efficient  way  pos- 
sible. It  will  involve  the  immediate  full 
equipment  of  the  Navy  in  all  respects, 

11 


but  particularly  in  supplying  it  with 
the  best  means  of  dealing  with  the 
enemy's  submarines.  It  will  involve  the 
immediate  addition  to  the  armed 
forces  of  the  United  States  already 
provided  for  by  law  in  case  of  war  at 
least  five  hundred  thousand  men,  who 
should,  in  my  opinion,  be  chosen  upon 
the  principle  of  universal  liability  to 
service,  and  also  the  authorization  of 
subsequent  additional  increments  of 
equal  force  so  soon  as  they  may  be 
needed  and  can  be  handled  in  training. 
It  will  involve  also,  of  course,  the 
granting  of  adequate  credits  to  the 
Government,  sustained,  I  hope,  so  far 
as  they  can  equitably  be  sustained  by 
the  present  generation,  by  well-con- 
ceived taxation.  I  say  sustained  so  far 
as  may  be  equitable  by  taxation  be- 
cause it  seems  to  me  that  it  would  be 
most  unwise  to  base  the  credits  which 
will  now  be  necessary  entirely  on 
money  borrowed.  It  is  our  duty,  I  most 
respectfully  urge,  to  protect  our  people 

12 


so  far  as  we  may  against  the  very  seri- 
ous hardships  and  evils  which  would 
be  likely  to  arise  out  of  the  inflation 
which  would  be  produced  by  vast 
loans. 

In  carrying  out  the  measures  by 
which  these  things  are  to  be  accom- 
plished we  should  keep  constantly  in 
mind  the  wisdom  of  interfering  as 
little  as  possible  in  our  own  prepara- 
tion and  in  the  equipment  of  our  own 
military  forces  with  the  duty — for  it 
will  be  a  very  practical  duty — of  sup- 
plying the  nations  already  at  war  with 
Germany  with  the  materials  which 
they  can  obtain  only  from  us  or  by  our 
assistance.  They  are  in  the  field  and  we 
should  help  them  in  every  way  to  be 
effective  there. 

I  shall  take  the  liberty  of  suggesting, 
through  the  several  executive  depart- 
ments of  the  Government,  for  the 
consideration  of  your  committees, 
measures  for  the  accomplishment  of 
the  several  objects  I  have  mentioned. 

13 


I  hope  that  it  will  be  your  pleasure  to 
deal  with  them  as  having  been  framed 
after  very  careful  thought  by  the 
branch  of  the  Government  upon  which 
the  responsibility  of  conducting  the 
war  and  safeguarding  the  Nation  will 
most  directly  fall. 

While  we  do  these  things,  these 
deeply  momentous  things,  let  us  be 
very  clear,  and  make  very  clear  to 
all  the  world  what  our  motives  and 
our  objects  are.  My  own  thought  has 
not  been  driven  from  its  habitual  and 
normal  course  by  the  unhappy  events 
of  the  last  two  months,  and  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  thought  of  the  Nation 
has  been  altered  or  clouded  by  them. 

I  have  exactly  the  same  things  in 
mind  now  that  I  had  in  mind  when  I 
addressed  the  Senate  on  the  twenty- 
second  of  January  last;  the  same  that 
I  had  in  mind  when  I  addressed  the 
Congress  on  the  third  of  February  and 
on  the  twenty-sixth  of  February. 

Our  object  now,  as  then,  is  to  vindi- 

14 


cate  the  principles  of  peace  and  justice 
in  the  life  of  the  world  as  against  self- 
ish and  autocratic  power  and  to  set 
up  amongst  the  really  free  and  self- 
governed  peoples  of  the  world  such  a 
concert  of  purpose  and  of  action  as 
will  henceforth  insure  the  observance 
of  those  principles. 

Neutrality  is  no  longer  feasible  or 
desirable  where  the  peace  of  the  world 
is  involved  and  the  freedom  of  its  peo- 
ples, and  the  menace  to  that  peace  and 
freedom  lies  in  the  existence  of  auto- 
cratic governments  backed  by  organ- 
ized force  which  is  controlled  wholly 
by  their  will,  not  by  the  will  of  their 
people.  We  have  seen  the  last  of  neu- 
trality in  such  circumstances. 

We  are  at  the  beginning  of  an  age 
in  which  it  will  be  insisted  that  the 
same  standards  of  conduct  and  of  re- 
sponsibility for  wrong  done  shall  be 
observed  among  nations  and  their  gov- 
ernments that  are  observed  among  the 
individual  citizens  of  civilized  states. 

15 


We  have  no  quarrel  with  the  Ger- 
man people.  We  have  no  feeling  to- 
ward them  but  one  of  sympathy  and 
friendship.  It  was  not  upon  their  im- 
pulse that  their  Government  acted  in 
entering  this  war.  It  was  not  with  their 
previous  knowledge  or  approval. 

It  was  a  war  determined  upon  as 
wars  used  to  be  determined  upon  in 
the  old,  unhappy  days  when  peoples 
were  nowhere  consulted  by  their  rulers 
and  wars  were  provoked  and  waged  in 
the  interest  of  dynasties  or  of  little 
groups  of  ambitious  men  who  were 
accustomed  to  use  their  fellow  men  as 
pawns  and  tools. 

Self -governed  nations  do  not  fill 
their  neighbor  states  with  spies  or  set 
the  course  of  intrigue  to  bring  about 
some  critical  posture  of  affairs  which 
will  give  them  an  opportunity  to  strike 
and  make  conquest.  Such  designs  can 
be  sucessfully  worked  out  only  under 
cover  and  where  no  one  has  the  right 
to  ask  questions. 

IG 


Cunningly  contrived  plans  of  decep- 
tion or  aggression,  carried,  it  may  be, 
from  generation  to  generation,  can  be 
worked  out  and  kept  from  the  light 
only  within  the  privacy  of  courts  or  be- 
hind the  carefully  guarded  confidences 
of  a  narrow  and  privileged  class.  They 
are  happily  impossible  where  public 
opinion  commands  and  insists  upon 
full  information  concerning  all  the  na- 
tion's affairs. 

A  steadfast  concert  for  peace  can 
never  be  maintained  except  by  a  part- 
nership of  democratic  nations.  No 
autocratic  government  could  be  trusted 
to  keep  faith  within  it  or  observe 
its  covenants.  It  must  be  a  league  of 
honor,  a  partnership  of  opinion. 

Intrigue  would  eat  its  vitals  away; 
the  plottings  of  inner  circles  who  could 
plan  what  they  would  and  render  ac- 
count to  no  one  would  be  a  corruption 
seated  at  its  very  heart.  Only  free  peo- 
ples can  hold  their  purpose  and  their 
honor  steady  to  a  common  end  and 

17 


prefer  the  interests  of  mankind  to  any 
narrow  interest  of  their  own. 

Does  not  every  American  feel  that 
assurance  has  been  added  to  our  hope 
for  the  future  peace  of  the  world  by 
the  wonderful  and  heartening  things 
that  have  been  happening  within  the 
last  few  weeks  in  Russia? 

Russia  was  known  by  those  who 
knew  it  best  to  have  been  always  in 
fact  democratic  at  heart,  in  all  the 
vital  habits  of  her  thought,  in  all  the 
intimate  relationships  of  her  people 
that  spoke  their  natural  instinct,  their 
habitual  attitude  toward  life. 

The  autocracy  that  crowned  the  sum- 
mit of  her  political  structure,  long  as 
it  has  stood  and  terrible  as  was  the 
reality  of  its  power,  was  not  in  fact 
Russian  in  origin,  character  or  pur- 
pose; and  now  it  has  been  shaken  off 
and  the  great,  generous  Russian  peo- 
ple have  been  added  in  all  their  native 
majesty  and  might  to  the  forces  that 
are  fighting  for  freedom  in  the  world, 

18 


for  justice,  and  for  peace.  Here  is  a  fit 
partner  for  a  League  of  Honor. 

One  of  the  things  that  has  served  to 
convince  us  that  the  Prussian  auto- 
cracy was  not  and  could  never  be  our 
friend  is  that  from  the  very  outset  of 
the  present  war  it  has  filled  our  un- 
suspecting communities  and  even  our 
offices  of  Government  with  spies  and 
set  criminal  intrigues  everywhere  afoot 
against  our  national  unity  of  council, 
our  peace  within  and  without,  our  in- 
dustries and  our  commerce. 

Indeed,  it  is  now  evident  that  its 
spies  were  here  even  before  the  war 
began;  and  it  unhappily  is  not  a  mat- 
ter of  conjecture,  but  a  fact  proved  in 
our  courts  of  justice,  that  the  intrigues 
which  have  more  than  once  come  per- 
ilously near  to  disturbing  the  peace 
and  dislocating  the  industries  of  the 
country  have  been  carried  on  at  the 
instigation,  with  the  support,  and  even 
under  the  personal  direction  of  official 
agents  of  the  Imperial  Government  ac- 

19 


credited  to  the  Government  of  the 
United  States. 

Even  in  checking  these  things  and 
trying  to  extirpate  them  we  have 
sought  to  put  the  most  generous  inter- 
pretation possible  upon  them  because 
we  knew  that  their  source  lay,  not  in 
any  hostile  feeling  or  purpose  of  the 
German  people  toward  us  (who  were, 
no  doubt  as  ignorant  of  them  as  we 
ourselves  were) ,  but  only  in  the  selfish 
designs  of  a  Government  that  did  what 
it  pleased  and  told  its  people  nothing. 
But  they  have  played  their  part  in 
serving  to  convince  us  at  last  that  that 
Government  entertains  no  real  friend- 
ship for  us  and  means  to  act  against 
our  peace  and  security  at  its  conveni- 
ence. That  it  means  to  stir  up  enemies 
against  us  at  our  very  doors,  the  inter- 
cepted note  to  the  German  Minister  at 
Mexico  City  is  eloquent  evidence. 

We  are  accepting  this  challenge  of 
hostile  purpose  because  we  know  that 
in  such  a  Government,  following  such 

20 


methods,  we  can  never  have  a  friend; 
and  that  in  the  presence  of  its  organ- 
ized power,  always  lying  in  wait  to 
accomplish  we  know  not  what  pur- 
pose, there  can  be  no  assured  security 
for  the  democratic  governments  of  the 
world. 

We  are  now  about  to  accept  gauge 
of  battle  with  this  natural  foe  to  lib- 
erty and  shall,  if  necessary,  spend  the 
whole  force  of  the  Nation  to  check  and 
nullify  its  pretensions  and  its  power. 
We  are  glad,  now  that  we  see  the  facts 
with  no  veil  of  false  pretense  about 
them,  to  fight  thus  for  the  ultimate 
peace  of  the  world  and  for  the  libera- 
tion of  its  peoples,  the  German  peoples 
included:  for  the  rights  of  nations 
great  and  small  and  the  privilege  of 
men  everywhere  to  choose  their  way 
of  life  and  of  obedience.  The  world 
must  be  made  safe  for  democracy.  Its 
peace  must  be  planted  upon  the 
tested  foundations  of  political  liberty. 

We  have  no  selfish  ends  to  serve.  We 

21 


desire  no  conquest,  no  dominion.  We 
seek  no  indemnities  for  ourselves,  no 
material  compensation  for  the  sacri- 
fices we  shall  freely  make.  We  are  but 
one  of  the  champions  of  the  rights  of 
mankind.  We  shall  be  satisfied  when 
those  rights  have  been  made  as  secure 
as  the  faith  and  the  freedom  of  nations 
can  make  them. 

Just  because  we  fight  without  rancor, 
and  without  selfish  object,  seeking 
nothing  for  ourselves  but  what  we 
shall  wish  to  share  with  all  free  peo- 
ples, we  shall,  I  feel  confident,  conduct 
our  operations  as  belligerents  without 
passion  and  ourselves  observe  with 
proud  punctilio  the  principles  of  right 
and  of  fair  play  we  profess  to  be  fight- 
ing for. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  the  govern- 
ments allied  with  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment of  Germany  because  they 
have  not  made  war  upon  us  or  chal- 
lenged us  to  defend  our  right  and  our 
honor.  The  Austro-Hungarian  Govern- 

22 


ment  has,  indeed,  avowed  its  unquali- 
fied indorsement  and  acceptance  of  the 
reckless  and  lawless  submarine  war- 
fare adopted  now  without  disguise  by 
the  Imperial  German  Government,  and 
it  has  therefore  not  been  possible  for 
this  Government  to  receive  Count  Tar- 
no  wski,  the  Ambassador  recently  ac- 
credited to  this  Government  by  the 
Imperial  and  Royal  Government  of 
Austria-Hungary;  but  that  Govern- 
ment has  not  actually  engaged  in  war- 
fare against  citizens  of  the  United 
States  on  the  seas,  and  I  take  the  lib- 
erty, for  the  present  at  least,  of  post- 
poning a  discussion  of  our  relations 
with  the  authorities  atVienna.  We  enter 
this  war  only  where  we  are  clearly 
forced  into  it  because  there  are  no  other 
means  of  defending  our  rights. 

It  will  be  all  the  easier  for  us  to  con- 
duct ourselves  as  belligerents  in  a  high 
spirit  of  right  and  fairness  because  we 
act  without  animus,  not  in  enmity  to- 
ward a  people  nor  with  the  desire  to 

23 


bring  any  injury  or  disadvantage  upon 
them,  but  only  in  armed  opposition  to 
an  irresponsible  Government  which 
has  thrown  aside  all  considerations  of 
humanity  and  of  right  and  is  running 
amuck. 

We  are,  let  me  say  again,  the  sincere 
friends  of  the  German  people,  and 
shall  desire  nothing  so  much  as  the 
early  re-establishment  of  intimate  re- 
lations of  mutual  advantage  between 
us — however  hard  it  may  be  for  them, 
for  the  time  being,  to  believe  that  this 
is  spoken  from  our  hearts.  We  have 
borne  with  their  present  Government 
through  all  these  bitter  months  because 
of  that  friendship — exercising  a  pa- 
tience and  forbearance  which  would 
otherwise  have  been  impossible.  We 
shall,  happily,  still  have  an  opportun- 
ity to  prove  that  friendship  in  our 
daily  attitude  and  actions  toward  the 
millions  of  men  and  women  of  Ger- 
man birth  and  native  sympathy  who 
live  amongst  us  and  share  our  life, 

24 


and  we  shall  be  proud  to  prove  it  to- 
ward all  who  are  in  fact  loyal  to  their 
neighbors  and  to  the  Government  in 
the  hour  of  test.  They  are,  most  of 
them,  as  true  and  loyal  Americans  as 
if  they  had  never  known  any  other 
fealty  or  allegiance. 

They  will  be  prompt  to  stand  with 
us  in  rebuking  and  restraining  the  few 
who  may  be  of  a  different  mind  and 
purpose. 

If  there  should  be  disloyalty,  it  will 
be  dealt  with  with  a  firm  hand  of  stern 
repression;  but,  if  it  lifts  its  head  at 
all,  it  will  lift  it  only  here  and  there 
and  without  countenance  except  from 
a  lawless  and  malignant  few. 

It  is  a  distressing  and  oppressive  duty, 
Gentlemen  of  the  Congress,  which  I 
have  performed  in  thus  addressing  you. 
There  are,  it  may  be,  many  months  of 
fiery  trial  and  sacrifice  ahead  of  us. 
It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  lead  this  great 
peaceful  people  into  war,  into  the 
most  terrible  and  disastrous  of  all 

25 


wars,  civilization  itself  seeming  to  be 
in  the  balance.  But  the  right  is  more 
precious  than  peace,  and  we  shall  fight 
for  the  things  which  we  have  always 
carried  nearest  our  hearts — for  de- 
mocracy, for  the  right  of  those  who 
submit  to  authority  to  have  a  voice  in 
their  own  governments,  for  the  rights 
and  liberties  of  small  nations,  for  a 
universal  dominion  of  right  by  such  a 
concert  of  free  peoples  as  shall  bring 
peace  and  safety  to  all  nations  and 
make  the  world  itself  at  last  free. 

To  such  a  task  we  can  dedicate  our 
lives  and  our  fortunes,  everything  that 
we  are  and  everything  that  we  have, 
with  the  pride  of  those  who  know  that 
the  day  has  come  when  America  is 
privileged  to  spend  her  blood  and  her 
might  for  the  principles  that  gave  her 
birth  and  happiness  and  the  peace 
which  she  has  treasured.  God  helping 
her,  she  can  do  no  other. 


26 


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